1. Field
The following description relates to an information recording medium, a recording/reproducing apparatus, and a recording/reproducing method, and more particularly, to a high capacity information recording medium that includes a plurality of recording layers.
2. Description of Related Art
To achieve a high capacity information storage medium or to transmit information via a wire or wireless network, various methods such as recording data on an information storage medium at a high density or in a multilayer structure are being developed. Because an information storage medium has a multilayer structure, each layer of an information storage medium typically has an area for disc recording/reproducing management.
An example of an area for disc recording/reproducing management is an optical power control (OPC) area. An OPC area is a test area for calibrating power, and is used to find an appropriate power level for recording or reproducing data on or from an information storage medium. Because a test is performed to find an optimal power level, power higher than a normal recording power may be applied, and thus, areas of neighboring layers may be damaged. Also, an area of a layer adjacent to an OPC area (in particular, a lower layer in a proceeding direction of an optical beam) may be damaged. As such, a multilayer structure typically uses multiple OPC areas. For example, a Blu-ray disc (BD) has OPC areas for a single layer (SL) or dual layers (DL), and additional OPC areas for a triple layer (TL) or a quadruple layer (QL) disc.